DOWNLOAD NOW »
When two troubled ex-cops stumble into the path of a serial killer, who leads them into the dark history of Galveston when it was known as Texas' Sin City, they soon discover that the FBI and the old Galveston families don't want them to solve the crimes. Original.

The Pahlavis and the Final Days of Imperial IranAuthor: Andrew Scott CooperPublisher: Henry Holt and CompanyISBN: 0805098984Category: HistoryPage: 416View: 7280

DOWNLOAD NOW »
An immersive, gripping account of the rise and fall of Iran's glamorous Pahlavi dynasty, written with the cooperation of the late Shah's widow, Empress Farah, Iranian revolutionaries and US officials from the Carter administration In this remarkably human portrait of one of the twentieth century's most complicated personalities, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Andrew Scott Cooper traces the Shah's life from childhood through his ascension to the throne in 1941. He draws the turbulence of the post-war era during which the Shah survived assassination attempts and coup plots to build a modern, pro-Western state and launch Iran onto the world stage as one of the world's top five powers. Readers get the story of the Shah's political career alongside the story of his courtship and marriage to Farah Diba, who became a power in her own right, the beloved family they created, and an exclusive look at life inside the palace during the Iranian Revolution. Cooper's investigative account ultimately delivers the fall of the Pahlavi dynasty through the eyes of those who were there: leading Iranian revolutionaries; President Jimmy Carter and White House officials; US Ambassador William Sullivan and his staff in the American embassy in Tehran; American families caught up in the drama; even Empress Farah herself, and the rest of the Iranian Imperial family. Intimate and sweeping at once, The Fall of Heaven recreates in stunning detail the dramatic and final days of one of the world's most legendary ruling families, the unseating of which helped set the stage for the current state of the Middle East.

DOWNLOAD NOW »
"Miracles from Heaven is a powerful, healing story about family, love, faith, and hope. It amazed me and it will inspire readers everywhere.---T.D. Jakes, bestselling author of Destiny In a remarkable true story of faith and blessings, a mother tells of her sickly young daughter, how she survived a dangerous accident, her visit to Heaven and the inexplicable disappearance of the symptoms of her chronic disease. Annabel Beam spent most of her childhood in and out of hospitals with a rare and incurable digestive disorder that prevented her from ever living a normal, healthy life. One sunny day when she was able to go outside and play with her sisters, she fell three stories headfirst inside an old, hollowed-out tree, a fall that may well have caused death or paralysis. Implausibly, she survived without a scratch. While unconscious inside the tree, with rescue workers struggling to get to her, she visited heaven. After being released from the hospital, she defied science and was inexplicably cured of her chronic ailment. Miracles from Heaven will change how we look at the world around us and reinforce our belief in God and the afterlife.

DOWNLOAD NOW »
Socialism was man's most ambitious attempt to supplant religion with a doctrine claiming to ground itself in """"science."""" Indeed, no religion ever spread so far so fast. Yet while socialism had established itself as a fact of life by the beginning of the 20th century, it did not create societies of abundance or give birth to """"the New Man."""" Each failure inspired new searches for the path to the promised land; revolution, communes, social democracy, Communism, Fascism, Third World socialism. None worked, and some exacted staggering human tolls. Then, after two hundred years of wishful thinking and fitful governance, socialism suddenly imploded in a fin du siecle drama of falling walls and collapsing regimes. In Heaven on Earth, Joshua Muravchik traces this fiery trajectory through sketches of the thinkers and leaders who developed the theory, led it to power, and presided over its collapse. We see such dreamers and doers as the French revolutionary Gracchus Babeuf, whose """"Conspiracy of Equals"""" were the first to try to outlaw private property; Robert Owen, who hoped to plant a model socialist utopia in the United States; Friedrich Engels, who created the cult of Karl Marx and """"scientific"""" socialism; Benito Mussolini, self proclaimed socialist heretic and inventor of Fascism; Clement Attlee, who rejected the fanatics and set out to build socialism democratically in Britain; Julius Nyerere, who merged social democracy and communism in the hope of making Tanzania a model for the developing world; and Mikhail Gorbachev, Deng Xiaoping and Tony Blair, who became socialism's inadvertent undertakers. Muravchik's accomplishment in Heaven on Earth is to tell a story filled with character and event while at the same time giving us an epic chronicle of a movement that tried to turn the world upside down--and for a time succeeded.

DOWNLOAD NOW »
This extraordinary work of investigative journalism takes readers inside America’s isolated Mormon Fundamentalist communities, where some 40,000 people still practice polygamy. Defying both civil authorities and the Mormon establishment in Salt Lake City, the renegade leaders of these Taliban-like theocracies are zealots who answer only to God. At the core of Krakauer’s book are brothers Ron and Dan Lafferty, who insist they received a commandment from God to kill a blameless woman and her baby girl. Beginning with a meticulously researched account of this appalling double murder, Krakauer constructs a multi-layered, bone-chilling narrative of messianic delusion, polygamy, savage violence, and unyielding faith. Along the way he uncovers a shadowy offshoot of America’s fastest growing religion, and raises provocative questions about the nature of religious belief.

DOWNLOAD NOW »
Eddie is a wounded war veteran, an old man who has lived, in his mind, an uninspired life. His job is fixing rides at a seaside amusement park. On his 83rd birthday, a tragic accident kills him, as he tries to save a little girl from a falling cart. He awakes in the afterlife, where he learns that heaven is not a destination. It's a place where your life is explained to you by five people, some of whom you knew, others who may have been strangers. One by one, from childhood to soldier to old age, Eddie's five people revisit their connections to him on earth, illuminating the mysteries of his "meaningless" life, and revealing the haunting secret behind the eternal question: "Why was I here?"

DOWNLOAD NOW »
The final book of the Bible, Revelation prophesies the ultimate judgement of mankind in a series of allegorical visions, grisly images and numerological predictions. According to these, empires will fall, the "Beast" will be destroyed and Christ will rule a new Jerusalem. With an introduction by Will Self.

DOWNLOAD NOW »
Mankind’s first contact with extraterrestrial life led to an incredible revelation. Their last may lead them to extinction. Twenty years have passed since the mysterious Near-Earth Object nicknamed Keanu appeared in the night sky and transported humans from all over Earth into its interior. There they discovered that Keanu was a long-range spaceship—and they were not alone. They joined forces with the aliens called the Architects, who had come from a distant galaxy to seek help in fighting the vicious Reivers. And they defeated them. Or so they thought. For when Keanu reestablished contact with Earth, they learned that the Reivers have taken over the planet, placing most of the population under their dominion. But mankind’s last hope may yet be hidden inside the NEO. And if the men and women still in Keanu cannot find it, humanity will be finished. And the galaxy will be next.

DOWNLOAD NOW »
From master storyteller An Na comes the Printz Award–winning novel about a Korean girl who tells her firsthand account of trying to find her place and identity in America from the day she leaves Korea as a child to her rocky journey through the teenage years. At age four, Young Ju moves with her parents from Korea to Southern California. She has always imagined America would be like heaven: easy, blissful, and full of riches. But when her family arrives, she finds it to be the opposite. With a stubborn language barrier and cultural dissimilarities, not only is it impossible to make friends, but even her family’s internal bonds are wavering. Her parents’ finances are strained, yet her father’s stomach is full of booze. As Young Ju’s once solid and reliable family starts tearing apart, her younger brother begins to gain more freedom and respect simply because of his gender. Young Ju begins to lose all hope in the dream she once held—the heaven she longs for. Even as she begins to finally fit in, a cataclysmic family event will change her idea of heaven forever. But it also helps her to recognize the strength she holds, and envision the future she desires, and deserves.

DOWNLOAD NOW »
A powerful, lyrical novel set in Armenia in 1915 to 1917 traces the destruction of an entire village at the hands of Turkish authorities and the consequences for the survivors of the Armenian genocide. A first novel. Reprint.

Book Five of 'The Wheel of Time'Author: Robert JordanPublisher: Tor BooksISBN: 9781429960373Category: FictionPage: 704View: 2860

DOWNLOAD NOW »
The Wheel of Time ® is a PBS Great American Read Selection! Now in development for TV! Since its debut in 1990, The Wheel of Time® by Robert Jordan has captivated millions of readers around the globe with its scope, originality, and compelling characters. The Wheel of Time turns and Ages come and go, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth returns again. In the Third Age, an Age of Prophecy, the World and Time themselves hang in the balance. What was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow. Into the forbidden city of Rhuidean, where Rand al'Thor, now the Dragon Reborn, must conceal his present endeavor from all about him, even Egwene and Moiraine. Into the Amyrlin's study in the White Tower, where the Amyrlin, Elaida do Avriny a'Roihan, is weaving new plans. Into the luxurious hidden chamber where the Forsaken Rahvin is meeting with three of his fellows to ensure their ultimate victory over the Dragon. Into the Queen's court in Caemlyn, where Morgase is curiously in thrall to the handsome Lord Gaebril. For once the dragon walks the land, the fires of heaven fall where they will, until all men's lives are ablaze. And in Shayol Ghul, the Dark One stirs... TV series update: "Sony will produce along with Red Eagle Entertainment and Radar Pictures. Rafe Judkins is attached to write and executive produce. Judkins previously worked on shows such as ABC’s “Agents of SHIELD,” the Netflix series “Hemlock Grove,” and the NBC series “Chuck.” Red Eagle partners Rick Selvage and Larry Mondragon will executive produce along with Radar’s Ted Field and Mike Weber. Darren Lemke will also executive produce, with Jordan’s widow Harriet McDougal serving as consulting producer." —Variety The Wheel of Time® New Spring: The Novel #1 The Eye of the World #2 The Great Hunt #3 The Dragon Reborn #4 The Shadow Rising #5 The Fires of Heaven #6 Lord of Chaos #7 A Crown of Swords #8 The Path of Daggers #9 Winter's Heart #10 Crossroads of Twilight #11 Knife of Dreams By Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson #12 The Gathering Storm #13 Towers of Midnight #14 A Memory of Light By Robert Jordan and Teresa Patterson The World of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time By Robert Jordan, Harriet McDougal, Alan Romanczuk, and Maria Simons The Wheel of Time Companion By Robert Jordan and Amy Romanczuk Patterns of the Wheel: Coloring Art Based on Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

DOWNLOAD NOW »
It was a headline story in the New York Times and USA Today. It was covered by Court TV and profiled on the Ricki Lake Show. Now, here is the intimate memoir of a shocking crime and its aftermath...one family's immediate and unforgettable story of what victims can suffer long after they should be safe.

DOWNLOAD NOW »
New York Times Bestseller and Man Booker Prize Finalist: A novel of ancient Greece by the author Hilary Mantel calls “a shining light.” Alexander the Great stands alone as a leader and strategist, and Fire from Heaven is Mary Renault’s unsurpassed dramatization of the formative years of his life. His parents fight for their precocious son’s love: On one side, his volatile father, Philip, and on the other, his overbearing mother, Olympias. The story tells of the conqueror’s two great bonds—to his horse, Oxhead, and to his dearest friend and eventual lover, Hephaistion—and of the army he commands when he is barely an adult. Coming of age during the battles for southern Greece, Alexander the Great appears in all of his colors—as the man who first takes someone’s life at age twelve and who swiftly eliminates his rivals as soon as he comes to power—and emerges as a captivating, complex, larger-than-life figure. Fire from Heaven is the first volume of the Novels of Alexander the Great trilogy, which continues with The Persian Boy and Funeral Games. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Mary Renault including rare images of the author. “Mary Renault is a shining light to both historical novelists and their readers. She does not pretend the past is like the present, or that the people of ancient Greece were just like us. She shows us their strangeness; discerning, sure-footed, challenging our values, piquing our curiosity, she leads us through an alien landscape that moves and delights us.” —Hilary Mantel

DOWNLOAD NOW »
This book is about how poets, philosophers, storytellers, and scientists have described motion, beginning with Hesiod, a contemporary of Homer, who imagined that the expanse of heaven and the depth of hell was the distance that an anvil falls in nine days. This book is aimed at students who have finished a year-long courses in calculus, but it can be used as a supplemental text in calculus II, vector calculus, linear algebra, differential equations, and modeling. It blends with equal voice romantic whimsy and derived equations, and anyone interested in mathematics will find new and surprising ideas about motion and the people who thought about it. Some of the things readers will learn is that Dante's implicit model of the earth implies a black hole at its core, that Edmond Halley championed a hollow earth, and that Da Vinci knew that the acceleration due to the earth's gravity was a constant. There are chapters modeling Jules Verne's and H.G. Wells' imaginative flights to the moon and back, the former novelist using a great cannon and the latter using a gravity-shielding material. The book analyzes Edgar Alan Poe's descending pendulum, H.G. Wells' submersible falling and rising in the Marianas Trench, a train rolling along a tunnel through a rotating earth, and a pebble falling down a hole without resistance. It compares trajectories of balls thrown on the Little Prince's asteroid and on Arthur C. Clarke's rotating space station, and it solves an old problem that was perhaps inspired by one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. The penultimate chapter is a story, based upon the Mayans, that loosely ties together the ideas about falling and spinning motion discussed in the book. Nearly all the chapters have exercises, some straightforward and some open ended, that may serve as the beginnings of student's honors projects.

Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350-550 ADAuthor: Peter BrownPublisher: Princeton University PressISBN: 1400844533Category: HistoryPage: 792View: 2725

DOWNLOAD NOW »
Jesus taught his followers that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven. Yet by the fall of Rome, the church was becoming rich beyond measure. Through the Eye of a Needle is a sweeping intellectual and social history of the vexing problem of wealth in Christianity in the waning days of the Roman Empire, written by the world's foremost scholar of late antiquity. Peter Brown examines the rise of the church through the lens of money and the challenges it posed to an institution that espoused the virtue of poverty and called avarice the root of all evil. Drawing on the writings of major Christian thinkers such as Augustine, Ambrose, and Jerome, Brown examines the controversies and changing attitudes toward money caused by the influx of new wealth into church coffers, and describes the spectacular acts of divestment by rich donors and their growing influence in an empire beset with crisis. He shows how the use of wealth for the care of the poor competed with older forms of philanthropy deeply rooted in the Roman world, and sheds light on the ordinary people who gave away their money in hopes of treasure in heaven. Through the Eye of a Needle challenges the widely held notion that Christianity's growing wealth sapped Rome of its ability to resist the barbarian invasions, and offers a fresh perspective on the social history of the church in late antiquity.